Blog, Goal Setting, Self Improvement

A Clear Vision in 2020

Today’s Topic & What You’ll Learn

  • The Truth Behind Our Motivation
  • How Lack Of Details Can Get You Lost
  • Ways To Be More Specific With Your Goals
  • Execution Is Always The Same
  • Planning For Detours
  • Plan, Do, Check & Adjust (P.D.C.A) Your Goals Weekly
  • Never Have A “Plan B”
  • If You Fail – Don’t Beat Yourself Up Over It

Mama Robbins

As the holidays wrap up and the end of the year approaches, I find many of us scurry to get to the finish line. We realize all the things we never got to this year and all the things we will have to push to the next. Plus, don’t forget about those pesky New Year Resolutions.

How about this year, we go into 2020 with a clear vision. One that is more specific than what you are likely used to. I find time and time again we make these plans, ideas, or “resolutions” to achieve goals and hit targets, but come this time next year as life gets in the way, we find ourselves falling short of what we wanted to accomplish. Thus, feeling defeated, saddened, discouraged and/or stressed once again that we need to push our goals one more year, or if at all.

Do you ever wonder why this happens? As humans, we overestimate and under deliver. It’s that simple.

The Truth Behind Our Motivation

Our motivation is vastly based on what we DESIRE. If you don’t really want anything out of life, what in the world is going to give you the “get up and go” to your day? You have no purpose, no need, no strive for success. But add to the bigger picture… what you want your life to look like, things you want to possess, this will give you the fire under your tush to “get it in gear”!

Starting a New Year is HUGE! It’s the excitement to a clean slate…a fresh start. If you are anything like me, knowing you’re starting off at ground zero and you get to build your year as you see it, you get all hyped up and ready to go. I will even grab a piece of paper and start writing goal after goal…. lose weight, be a happier mom, work on my business, continue my website, build a product line, furnish my house, etc. But do you see what is wrong with these goals? They are WAY TOO VAGUE. You need to really narrow your goals down. No more basic goals with no timeline or extravagant goals without really breaking them down to the finish line. We need to really put a lot more thought into our goals this year. This will give you a much higher chance of reaching these goals and feeling more fulfilled, satisfied and rewarded in the end.

Lack of Detail May Get You Lost

The lack of details may even get you lost! The more detail you are lacking on your goals, the more likely you are NOT to hit them. Why?

Let me give you an example: Say you have a GPS in your car or phone. You plug in the address and away you go. You can tell it to avoid toll routes, ferries, skip over certain ways, you name it. It will calculate your exact route down to the minute based on your speed and location. If there is an accident, it will recalculate. That simple.

Alternative Option: Now say you didn’t have a GPS or google maps in an area you have never been. You stopped at a gas station and they tell you where you need to go but were very vague. Maybe you feel you have an “idea” how to get there and you can kinda see the route in your head, but can’t see the actual destination spot because of the lack of details provided to you. You start to travel and you make the turns necessary as described by the gas station attendant. But there is a problem….You thought the trip was only supposed to take 2 hours and now you have been driving around for 3 hours. One hour past your estimated time. You have no idea where you are going now as you feel you may have taken a wrong turn, and you can’t seem to find the location. So you stop for directions again…meanwhile, you actually past your destination twice and you had NO idea.

Why did I use that example? Because it’s a great way to show what having all the details vs very little will do for you. Without a plan in place, you have to stop more and reask the questions you should have started with. Plus, when the attendant gave you directions, you probably should have written it down.

Digging Deeper

When we talk about digging deeper and finding the smaller, fine-tuned details to your goals, I’m being dead serious. Here is some examples:

  • Weight Loss – How many lbs/kg, by when, what exercises are you going to do, how often per week will you work out, what time, how long are your sessions, what kind of food will you eat, avoid, how much water will you drink a day, what is your back up plan if you missed any of these above
  • Building Your Business – How many clients do you want to gain this month, what type of clients, how many presentations will you do a week, what products will you offer, how many hours a day will you work on your business, during those hours what will you work on, if you get sick or something comes up how will you make up those hours, how many referrals will you collect, how do you plan to get those referrals, how many calls will you make a day, what social media will you utilize, if business falls off the books what will you do to recover, etc
  • Buying a house – what is the price of the home, what will your mortgage payment be, what is your preapproved mortgage amount, if your payment is more than you could afford now how can you change that, how many more hours at work would you need to work, is there overtime available, could you get a more affordable home, how many bedrooms do you need vs want, what type of garage, what is the exterior made of, how much land would you like, do you want it fenced in or open, do you want it in the city or the country, is a school in the neighbourhood or a grocery store, do you care about the “walk score” (how close it is walking distance to things), etc
  • Get Out Of Debt – How much debt do you have, what are your debts, what has the highest interest rate, what are your minimum payments, how much of your budget can you put towards your debts or how much per pay will you put on your card, if you miss a payment how will you make up the difference, how long would it take you to eliminate one piece of debt if you only paid the minimum payment, can you work more hours to get more money, etc

Execution Is Always The Same

It really doesn’t matter what goal you have. The execution process is always going to be the same. Find out what you want the end game/goal to look like, then work yourself back to see what you need to do in order to get there.

Plan For Detours

Whatever goal you set for yourself, remember that life happens. Kids are born, family members pass away, job advancements, more responsibility, extracurricular activities, you stay late at work or work more overtime, maintaining relationships, RnR time for you. Things are going to happen, things are going to advert you from your path of achieving your goals, but instead of just putting them on the back burner like most of us do and regret not getting to it later, put these “Detours” into your plan of achieving your goal.

Baby Steps To Success

A huge factor to people not being able to achieve the goals they set for the year is they look at the Big Picture too far down the road. If you know you want to lose 50lbs this year, that can seem overwhelming. Especially if you have struggled with your weight for a while. You need to make sure you are taking small baby steps to success. Personally, I love to give myself “Weekly” rewards for my goals. Doesn’t matter how long I know they will take. If I am aiming to write 8 pieces of business this next month and I know I should be doing 2 a week and I hit that 2 that week…guess what… REWARD! Then, if I also hit my 8 for the month….another REWARD! Why? Because rewarding ourselves more frequently also will boost your motivation to KEEP GOING! What better way to almost guarantee success! Now on the other hand, if you are struggling to hit your goals and really failing….that is okay too. Sometimes we need to fail to make our minds and bodies stronger for a different goal we could focus on.

Goal Overload!

Don’t set yourself up for failure from the beginning. If you set TOO MANY goals for the year, even though they may be broken down to the day, you can be focusing on too many things at once and lose site of it all. The whole saying, “A Jack of All Trades and a Master of None” can not be truer.

BreakDown Process

Weight loss is the easiest goal to explain for comprehension purposes, so let’s stick with this one. If you know you want to lose 50lbs this year (your end goal) break it down. 50 lbs for the year divided by 12 months is 4.16lbs per month. With the normal 4 weeks in a month that roughly 1 lbs per week. That’s so dooable! So you say to yourself…I will workout Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you list the foods you will eat, and avoid. You plan all the details needed. Prepping foods in advance to avoid cravings, drinking a lot of water and always having a water bottle with you. But you KNOW for a fact, you will have days you don’t want to go, something will come up, your schedule will be running behind, you will miss a day, or you will have a week you plateau and you don’t lose a pound. What do you do? Plan for the next week to work out a little longer, or maybe do an extra day that week. But what happens if you miss a day or two, struggle to eat right, and are not losing anything?

P.D.C.A (Plan, Do, Check, Adjust)

Sometimes we have to go back to our original goal and re-mark out our path. Our goal is still the same, but our path is written in sand. This is a key importance to ensuring we still accomplish our goals by the end of the year. Thing is, maybe a lot of things happen that are unforeseen and we need to adjust either the goal itself or how we want to get there. But whatever you do, DON’T WRITE OFF THE GOAL COMPLETELY. Unless you feel that goal is actually no longer something you want to achieve, keep pushing forward!

It doesn’t matter how much you are thrown off the plan, if you get lost on your GPS 3/4 of the way into your trip you don’t just turn around and go back home and call it quits. Does that make sense? You put that much time and effort into it in the first place, don’t make that time wasted! Make sure you are checking in on your goal process once weekly! This will ensure if you have had any setbacks you can “reroute” your path to still achieve your goal on time.

Arnold Schwarzenegger said it best, “Never have a Plan B”

Why never have a Plan B? Because it allows your mind to know there is a safety net. It will give you a reason to make excuses or feel excuses are okay. If you Google Arnold Schwarzenegger Motivations Talks and you see how he became as successful as he has and more. Seriously….this guy worked 10 to 12 hours days and still went to the gym 4 to 5 hours a day while working on his acting career. Crazy. Now, we have social media, television, and other things that pop into our lives that make us “feel” we have a reason not to do something. We’ve worked so hard all day so now we need to relax….no…you “want” to relax.

When you make things a priority, you will make time for those things.

If You Fail – Don’t Beat Yourself Up

Remember I said we are human and we tend to overestimate and under deliver? If you did plan too much for the year and you didn’t achieve everything you wanted, DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP OVER IT. If you were able to even achieve one goal off your list, call it a victory. It is extremely rare for someone to list 20 to 30 goals for the year and hit every single one. (Depending on the goal) If you are one who normally does that, you are a high achiever and should be reaching out to others and helping them achieve their goals too! We all need mentors!

So be specific with your goals right down to what you want the end result to be. Work back from there and breakdown what needs to happen in between. Make sure you have a plan for when something does pop in that causes you to “Detour” and how you will get back on the path to achieve your goal. Let’s Make A Clear Vision in 2020 and hit those New Year Resolutions the first time!

Until Next Time – Follow Me: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, & YouTube.

Sincerely,

Mama Robbins

2 thoughts on “A Clear Vision in 2020”

  1. You have a clear and concise way of explaining goal setting and goal execution. I appreciate the emphasis on crafting goals that are very specific. One might say “ultra specific”. Not just the what but the how, and what if. Very well done. Looking forward to your next blog/podcast. —@Rosie_2222

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